Sorry, Folks, Inflation Ain’t Going Nowhere
Inflation, having long since overstayed its welcome, announced on Tuesday that it was just getting comfortable.
Wall Street has largely ignored the signals over the past few months that inflation was no longer on a path toward moderation. After declining from the roaring days of 2022, inflation spent the first half of 2023 in decline. But sometime last summer—not coincidentally, right around the time the Fed stopped raising rates—it regained its hold on the economy.
The January figures released Tuesday showed the consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.3 percent from the previous month, an acceleration from the previous month’s 0.2 percent. This was the third straight acceleration in the month-to-month figure and the fastest rate since September.
The 12-month rate of inflation declined to 3.1 percent from 3.4 percent, but this was…
